Investigators don't usually have such an easy time determining whether cell phone use caused a driver to rear-end another vehicle, veer into oncoming traffic, or otherwise lose control of their car, he said.

"Unless the driver who was hit tells us he saw the other driver talking on his phone, a witness sees it or the driver admits it, we may not find out," Mrazik said.

As a result, accurate statistics about the number of accidents, injuries and fatalities caused by drivers distracted because they were on the phone are hard to come by, according to police and auto safety groups.

"The numbers don't currently exist. That's one of the conundrums of the debate. We can quantify the risk, but we can't say how many crashes are caused by drivers who are on the phone, because the police don't always get reliable information," said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In 2002, the last year for which statistics are available, there were about 1,000 deaths nationwide and 14 in Connecticut related to cell phone use.

But in the last seven years, the number of cell phones has doubled, and experts estimate the resulting number of fatalities at 2,000 to 2,600, Ditlow said.

The lack of hard information handicaps lawmakers seeking to regulate the use of cell phones and other devices for drivers behind the wheel, said state Rep. David Scribner, R-Brookfield, the ranking minority member of the legislature's Transportation Committee and an advocate for laws protecting the motoring public.

"That is one of the most frustrating things," Scribner said. "Cell phone use has increased dramatically since they came out, and now 90 percent of the drivers have them. People tend to view time behind the wheel as idle time, when they should be focusing on their driving skills."

Connecticut is one of eight states that require drivers to use a hands-free device when talking on a cell phone, and a violation of the law carries a $100 fine.

So far this year, state troopers have issued approximately 6,700 citations for "distracted driving," according to state police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance .

The charge most often involves illegal use of a cell phone but can include any action that diverts the driver's attention from the road.

The number of distracted driving tickets peaked at 38,336 in 2007 but has declined since.

The downward trend has been borne out in the amount of cell phone fines collected by the state, according to statistics from the Connecticut Judicial Department.

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, motorists paid just over $2.1 million in fines, down more than $500,000 from the previous year.

So far in 2009, New Milford police have issued 258 citations for distracted driving, Mrazik said.

"But if we had someone dedicated to it full time, we could probably write 258 in a week," he said. "Sometimes it seems that almost every driver you see is doing it."